James J. Hill and the day the railroads roiled Wall Street

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James J. Hill was responsible, perhaps more than any other one person, for the rise of Minnesota industry and agriculture, and its lasting international impact. His robust railroad empire drew the state’s arterial maps, and even influenced the layout of the city of St. Paul. He was a brilliant businessman and dazzling intellectual, a self-taught scholar with a grade-school education whose work gave rise for a better way of life for thousands of people in the early years of Minnesota statehood. Yet he has been largely forgotten.

“I think in Minnesota we tend to be ambivalent about our business leaders,” says Larry Haeg, author of “Harriman vs. Hill: Wall Street’s Great Railroad War” (University of Minnesota Press), the first new book in 37 years about the man whose Great Northern Railroad linked Minnesota and Wisconsin to the West and helped facilitate the country’s westward expansion.

“I continue to be amazed by the number of younger people I meet who have never even heard of him, despite everything he did,” Haeg said in an interview. “We don’t have a single monument to him in the state, aside from the mansion [the James J. Hill House on Summit Avenue, run by the Minnesota Historical Society] and the railroad he built [known today as BNSF]. When you think of all the wealth that he created and multiplied in this state, it’s surprising that he’s been forgotten.”

Haeg has spent much of the past decade immersed in the world of Hill and his contemporaries. A former news writer for WCCO Radio who spent the bulk of his career in corporate communications, Haeg now writes about history. His first book, “In Gatsby’s Shadow: The Story of Charles Macomb Flandrau” (University of Iowa Press) followed the path of a talented St. Paul writer who powerfully influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald. If Haeg had lived a century earlier, he might have crossed paths with Flandrau or Hill; all three called the same St. Paul neighborhood home.

As he began his second book, Haeg intended to write a character study of Hill and the businessmen known as the “robber barons.” As he advanced in his research, however, he found the true test of their character came during what is known today as the Northern Pacific Corner, a four-day run on the railroad company’s stock that roiled Wall Street and set off the country’s first stock market panic.

Hill and a competitor, Edward Harriman, head of the Union Pacific line, both sought to buy the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy line, a smaller railroad that would link them to important markets in Chicago. Hill came up with the high purchase price that Harriman wouldn’t meet, but Harriman, in a dramatic ploy, attempted to gain control from within by purchasing a majority share of the Northern Pacific line’s stock. During the raid, shares of Northern Pacific shot from $110 to $1,000 a share, and cornered the stock. The flamboyant financier J.P. Morgan, who owned a significant portion of the remaining stock, joined forces with Hill to fend off Harriman, and eventually a truce was called through the formation of a massive railroad holding company. But the damage to the market was significant, and impacted the way Americans viewed the stock market.

“You have to remember, in 1901, the United States was in the midst of a huge boom and expansion. Average people were becoming wealthy quickly. Oil was discovered in Texas. It was a heady time for America. Investors began to assume the market could do nothing but go up. And then this thing happens,” said Haeg.

“The Northwest Corner was the first real stock market panic. It helped burst that bubble. Small investors got burned and almost overnight, the faith in the U.S. economy was shattered. The storm cloud passed quickly but it left doubts about the stability of the markets and it left one very important lesson: There’s a very fine line between being an investor and being a speculator.”

Haeg spent three months holed up in the Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota reading every issue of the Wall Street Journal from January to June 1901. “It was essentially a newsletter about the railroads. But it also helped me put myself in that time period. I knew what events were impacting the business, and followed the stock volume and movement, and read what people were saying. It was a very different business climate back then — there was very little government oversight over business or Wall Street. There was no requirement that you had to disclose anything to your stockholders and no requirement that you had to disclose who your stockholders were. These events helped change all that.”

Haeg realized that he could best test the characters of Hill and his contemporaries by observing how they handled the crisis of the Northern Pacific Corner. In this fast-paced, highly readable social history, he examines Harriman, Hill, Morgan, Jacob Schiff, J.D. Rockefeller, Robert Bacon, and other key players of the day, and follows the deal through to its aftermath — Theodore Roosevelt’s breakup of the trust.

“It’s fascinating to see how each man behaved in the situation,” said Haeg. “They were portrayed very unfavorably, but these were not evil people. They were incredibly smart, resourceful, hardworking people who didn’t waste much time. And they were right for their day. Hill was a difficult personality — he had a violent temper and demanded a great deal from his employees. He was not a people person, he never asked for favors. He did it all himself, that’s what it took. He wouldn’t survive as a CEO of a Fortune 500 company today. But what he was able to accomplish is just phenomenal. He was an amazing person.”

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Comments (5)

Other sort-of monuments to James J. Hill might include the St. Paul Cathedral, which he largely financed and the legacies left by his son and grandson in the form of the Northwest Area Foundation and the Jerome Foundation (but it’s interesting that those do not bear the family name, unlike Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, etc.).

James J. Hill did not finance the cathedral. The two best biographies of Hill make this point:

1. From Albro Martin, James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest, p. 596: In 1916, “When the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica included in its biographical sketch of him the statement that he had given $1.5 million to the building fund for St. Paul’s new Roman Catholic Cathedral, he wrote the editor an indignant denial.”

2. From Michael P. Malone, James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest, p. 191: “Rumors that he had donated up to $1.5 million for the Roman Catholic cathedral that rose up to block his view of downtown Saint Paul were entirely false. In fact, the structure angered him. It was his son Louis, instead, who promoted that project.”

Louis W. Hill contributed $20,000 and was treasurer of the executive committee for building the cathedral. (Biloine W. Young with Eileen R. McCormack, The Duitiful Son: Louis W. Hill, p. 72)

From the article — a quote from the author of the book: “We don’t have a single monument to him in the state, aside from the mansion [the James J. Hill House on Summit Avenue, run by the Minnesota Historical Society] and the railroad he built [known today as BNSF]. When you think of all the wealth that he created and multiplied in this state, it’s surprising that he’s been forgotten.”

Well, of course there is also the JJ Hill Library on Rice Park. (http://www.jjhill.org/)
There is also the Northwest Areas Foundation (http://www.nwaf.org/Home.aspx) (founded by his son with a significant portion of the family inheritance) (Also an philanthropic investor in MinnPost I believe)

These seem like importance part’s of the “monuments” to JJ Hill in Minnesota.

I will leave the arguments about the roles/relationships between JJ Hill, the Native American populations, government subsides, role of the Army in establishing the “right of way” for the Railroad, foundations of JJ Hill’s wealth to others with farm more educations than myself.

But the term “Robber Barron” was coined to describe people like him for a reason. The barron’s built their empires on the bones of Indians, land granted by the government, and the backs of hardworking and not well paid labor. We should not deny his place and role in history but this celebration seems disproportionate. Maybe its this article, not the book, but its an outmoded form of history that builds a narrative around historical figures rather than weaves historical figures into the historical narrative. Based on the article it looks more like a contemporary executive profile rather than history.

We also have the Stone Arch Bridge by way of monuments, there are several historical plaques on that bridge, and some of them discuss the fact that Hill built it.

I think one interesting about guys like Hill is that regardless of their methods or personal qualities they were building big things, and thinking really really big, and they were conscious of their historic roles and concerned about their legacies. Contemporary executives by and large build nothing beyond their own portfolios, they float from company to company that was built decades ago by people like Hill who used the stock market but didn’t see stocks as ends in and of themselves. It’s tempting to credit guys like Hill and Lowery as being more talented and civic minded than contemporary CEO’s but such comparisons are difficult because the economy is so different.

I recommend a visit to Hill’s house Summit Ave, it is an extraordinary building and a fun tour.

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